For me? Hmm maybe. But my sexuality has been one hell of a whirlwind journey. Apologies for what’s about to be a long post. But, I feel it’s important to share as I’m sure there are others out there like me.
I remember starting puberty and thinking I was the “default” straight. But I wasn’t a very masculine kid and I got bullied and called gay anyway despite not really feeling that I was. Then in 7th grade, I developed a crush on a guy in my French class, but I also had a crush on this girl I’d crushed on since 6th grade. However, I didn’t have a label for how I felt. Back then, circa 2000, Bisexual was still a label rarely used and it was even more openly mocked than today. TV shows like Sex and the City mocked bisexuality with quotes like “bisexual is just a layover on the way to gay town”, and that was if media even addressed bisexuality at all.
In 8th grade, I developed full-on crushes for two guys in my classes. I’d fallen out of my crush with that one girl, and I even began leaving love letters to one of those guys by secretly slipping them in his locker through the vents on his locker door. It never went anywhere of course, because he was straight and I never revealed it was me who left him those letters. But I do remember asking one of my female friends to a school dance and actually hoping that it might turn into a relationship, and also having a discussion with another female friend where we both admitted we liked one another, but she was already dating another friend of ours. However, by the end of 8th grade, I began to identify as fully gay and I came out to my circle of friends, as did my best friend. But deep down I didn’t feel that “gay” fully encompassed who I was.
High school was even more of a confusing time for me. I had no female crushes in high school, all my crushes were guys, and one lasted all 4 years. None of them developed into anything though as of course all of those guys were straight and I didn’t try to start anything with any of them so it was all pining at a distance, except one in which I was rejected but thankfully he was nice about it. But during high school I also began thinking I was transgender, I didn’t feel masculine (because I had such a rigid traditional idea of what masculinity was which was instilled into me by society). And I began to think I must be trans because I was very feminine during high school, I liked guys exclusively during that time, but didn’t feel like I identified fully as a guy, so I felt like I was a female trapped in a male body. I even began considering getting the transition surgeries for some time later in life. But my father and I had a huge argument where he pressured me into divulging my sexuality to him and then he threatened to out me to my mom if I didn’t come out to her on my own, and even told me that my mom would likely not love me anymore since her first husband left her to be gay with his own father (something I had never known before then). But I came out to my family and honestly nothing changed between my brother or mother, the only bad relationship I had was still with my dad which was already bad before then.
When college started, I had a bit of a reboot to my system. I started exploring my masculine side and actually began to understand that masculinity is however you define it for yourself as a man, every man defines it differently, but it does not come in one single shape or form. And even the most feminine guy can be/identify as masculine if that’s how he defines his own personal masculinity. There is no one right or wrong way to be masculine, only how you try to ascribe your own personal masculinity onto other people is the issue, and even then it’s not masculinity that’s the issue, it’s your projection of self and expectations onto others. But during college I did develop a more “traditionally” masculine self, though I still had some guy crushes, so it was clear to me by then that masculinity has nothing to do with my sexuality.
However, growing up in a homophobic household and still living with my parents, I felt a lot of pressure to conform to my father’s ideas of me that heterosexuality is how people are supposed to be. I began discussing with an older man I met online who became a mentor to me, who also struggled with his sexuality as he was married to a woman and had been for 20 years but couldn’t deny that he had “gay feelings” as he called it. We both acted as a buddy system supporting each other in trying to do self-performed “reparative therapy” on ourselves from a book we had both read from some quack psychologist who said homo- or bisexuality was just the condition of an aberrant mind created from poor filio-paternal relationships, a troublesome homelife, and emotional abuse. However, I did know I had those feelings for my female crushes and female friends in middle school and I was certain those hadn’t just been a fluke of sorts, so I thought somewhere deep inside of me must be a straight person or something like that.
So mid college I began to convince myself that I was straight, and that my middle school and high school feelings were just silly teenage phases. I even came out to my parents...again...as straight. That’s something you don’t hear every day haha, someone coming out as straight. I got my first girlfriend, though it fizzled out quickly, but I soon got my second gf which developed into a 6 month relationship. However, during that whole relationship I still had “gay thoughts” and my gf openly identified as bisexual, though I never thought much about it at first. But as time went on, I began to consider the bisexual label more seriously, and explored what it meant. Right before we broke up, we and a group of our friends went to a psychology class to take a survey (I forget what about) for a friend who was in the class. On the survey (which was entirely anonymous) one of the questions asked what our sexuality was. And for the first time ever, I chose to answer bisexual. And it felt so right to do so, things began to feel like they were falling into place and making sense, I had found my sexuality finally and knew that it is what I was all along, but had never been able to put it into a fully realized concept and identity before that moment.
To conclude though, that older guy mentor of mine and I fully realized that we weren’t straight or gay, we were actually bisexual and that there was nothing wrong with that and we have accepted that. I have identified as bisexual for 8 years now and even though my sexuality has been one hell of a wild ride, I know who I am and that is bisexual and I am proudly so. But I do know that my bisexuality has nuances to itself, such as that I am more immediately attracted to guys as they appeal to me more physically and that’s the first thing I come across when seeing someone, and even though I find girls physically attractive, I don’t begin to feel strong overall attraction to them until I’ve gotten to know them better on a personal/emotional level. I came out (again!?!? I know right haha, yeah I’ve come out 3 times) to my family at the end of 2017. I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 2 and a half years now, and I’m happy with our relationship. He knows I’m bi, and even though he doesn’t fully understand bisexuality, he’s comfortable with my sexuality and doesn’t dismiss it or see it as invalid, he respects me fully. So yeah that’s my long ass post haha.
